


this time, i’m falling hard

by jjokkiri



Series: monsta x bingo (winter 2017) [33]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fluff, M/M, Monsta X Bingo, sort of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: “You’re going to become one of the best-selling authors of all time, one day,” Hoseok told him. “And I’ll be your biggest fan.”





	this time, i’m falling hard

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the _Sci-Fi_ square of [Monsta X Bingo](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/MXbingo), even though the only sci-fi-y thing is the time travel. Oops.

Shin Hoseok came into Yoo Kihyun’s life as a rainstorm. The sudden kind of rain that pattered against the window in the middle of the night and kept you up; the kind of storm that was eye-catching and loud, but somehow kept you calm, gently lulled you back to sleep when you finally got used to the pattern. Hoseok came into Kihyun’s terribly monotonous life as a pleasantly unexpected surprise, and Kihyun fell head over heels in love.

He couldn’t remember who it was that confessed their feelings first, but he remembered the moment they met like it was one of the most important few minutes of his life. And certainly, it could have been one of those moments. It made his heart race when he thought of it; made his chest bubble with an inexplicable warmth that he loved to associate with Hoseok’s name; Hoseok’s smile; everything Hoseok. Sometimes, when he was at work, he’d sit there and daydream about the moment he’d met his boyfriend.

It had been a Monday morning—a day where he’d been running late to work, unable to stop by the nearby coffee shop and pick up his typical order. He’d been cranky when his boss, Son Hyunwoo, had asked him to stack a couple of the new books onto the shelves. He always hated the stocking jobs, and Hyunwoo often tried to avoid letting him climb the ladders and put up the books, but his co-worker hadn’t come into work yet, that morning. He was the only available staff and he was forced into the front corner of the store, putting books on shelves.

He loved working at the bookstore, but in moments like this, it made his life so much harder and he dared to think that _maybe,_ he could really hate his job.

Several feet in the air, Kihyun’s balance relied on the aluminum frame of the step stool—ladder, he insisted, because no step stool was that high—and he hated it more than anything. He didn’t have an irrational fear of heights, just an annoyance with the fact that he actually needed to use the step stool to properly reach the fifth shelf off the ground. It was an acquired dislike from the million times he’d seen his co-worker, a completely unnecessary one hundred eighty-one centimeter stick named Chae Hyungwon, smirk at him from the distance.

It might have been in his disgruntled state that he managed to make an accidental step a little too far to the right, because he was suddenly falling backwards from the lack of a stable platform beneath him. And suddenly, it was as if he’d fallen somewhere into the middle of a cliché drama filming, because as he fell back, he didn’t hit the ground with a painful strike like he’d braced himself for. Instead, he fell directly into a pair of strong arms, which wrapped around him tightly.

That was how he met Hoseok, embarrassingly enough (though now, Hoseok insisted that it was the cutest thing in the world, and he shouldn’t dwell over it— _“it was the first step to falling for me, right?”_ Hoseok would tease him with a cheesy wink).

Hoseok’s strong arms caught him, breaking his fall from the steps and he’d been engulfed in an envelope of cologne and warmth.

And he was in a daze, until a voice snapped him out of it: “Are you alright?”

Kihyun practically jolted back to reality, immediately flustered.

They lived in a smaller city and Kihyun knew most of the people who came and went—there wasn’t a chance he wouldn’t recognize Hoseok’s handsome face, if he’d seen it before. So, with flushed cheeks, he apologized and quickly scrambled out of the blond’s arms, once he realized that he was staring. It was hard not to stare, but Kihyun couldn’t let himself come off as rude. There was something terribly familiar about Hoseok then, and Kihyun couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Thank you,” he quickly said. “For catching me,” he added.

Hoseok smiled at him, “No problem, Kihyun.”

And if he’d been paying attention, then he’d realize that Hoseok hadn’t even looked for his nametag—the nametag that Kihyun had forgotten to put on, before he rushed off to carry out the tasks Hyunwoo had assigned him. Then, with a quick salute, Hoseok had vanished somewhere into the other aisles of the bookstore. Kihyun learned his name later, when he was manning the cash register and Hoseok had approached him with three novels and a small smile.

“I know it’s not something you guys sell,” Hoseok started. “But, I was wondering if I could get your number, too?”

Kihyun flushed and he averted his eyes, shyly, “My number?”

“Yeah,” Hoseok said, and there was a hopeful glimmer in his eyes. “In case you need me to catch you again, or something. Or maybe, so we could go out and grab a drink together sometime?”

His hand reached for the receipt being printed from his register, and he grabbed a nearby pen with a soft laugh. And as he scribbled his number onto the bottom of the receipt with a small smiley face drawn beside it, he thanked the Heavens that Hyungwon wasn’t working today. He wouldn’t ever hear the end of it, if Hyungwon witnessed the exchange.

“I have class between nine and one on Tuesdays through Fridays, I work full shifts—from opening to closing—every other weekend, and I work from eight in the morning until noon on every other day,” he said. “I’ll be expecting a call, any time outside of those hours.”

Hoseok grinned at the receipt, when Kihyun handed it over to him and he chuckled lightly. “The store closes at five on weekends, right?”

“That’s correct,” he confirmed.

“So you work from eight to five, and you’ll be free to anticipate my calls after that?”

Cheeks bright red, Kihyun swallowed around an imaginary lump of sudden, belated embarrassment in his throat and nodded.

“Perfect,” Hoseok smiled, and Kihyun swore he was already in love.

The rest of his shift was long and exhausting, but Kihyun found a reason _not_ to hate Monday mornings too much.

 

 

 

It’s a Thursday afternoon.

With an exasperated sigh, Kihyun threw his books into his bag and zipped up the bag with a frown on his lips. Surely, the expression would become permanent, one day—that was what his mother always told him about frowning so much. His classmates eyed him, but he paid no mind to them. Class was dismissed and they could mind their own business while he minded his. Kihyun’s fingers rummaged through the pockets in his book bag and he searched for his phone, switching the device on and watching as abstract patterns filled the screen with light.

 _(1) missed call!_ His phone blinked at him, when the device finally loaded. Swiping down on the notification, the literature student peered at the contact information of the caller. _Dad_. Kihyun immediately deflated, rolled his eyes and slipped his phone back into his pocket.

His father was far from fond of his studies in writing, and surely, he wouldn’t give up on his dreams because of the opinion of someone else. Unfortunately, it seemed college students with little to no experience in professionally publishing books were continuously turned down with displeased expressions from editors who had their minds set on the next hit book.

Kihyun begged to differ, genuinely thought that they couldn’t recognize talent when they saw it. But, more than anything, he needed their help to make it big. He made a promise with his parents that he would give in to what they wanted, if he couldn’t get a bestseller published before he turned twenty-five.

It was a gamble, but a gamble he was willing to make. Kihyun was confident in his skills. He just needed the world to see it.

As he exited the classroom with a frown on his face, Kihyun’s phone buzzed with a call and he was prepared to hang up the call, but glancing at his phone showed an unknown number. Hesitantly, Kihyun swiped his thumb across the screen and held the device up to his ear.

“Hello, Yoo Kihyun speaking?”

 _“Ah,”_ came the response, _“Good, you didn’t give me a fake number. Hey, I hope I’m not interrupting class—it’s three minutes after one, so I’m hoping you’re already out.”_

Kihyun blanked, “Excuse me? Who is this?”

_“Do you really not know, or are you pretending that you weren’t anticipating my call at all?”_

That was all he needed to jolt his memory.

And really, _that_ was the first step to falling in love with Hoseok.

 

 

 

“Babe,” Kihyun sighed, leaning back against Hoseok’s chest and frowning.

His gaze fixed itself on the laptop sitting in his lap, and his lips twisted themselves into a seemingly permanent frown. Hoseok’s slender fingers pleasantly carded through his hair, the action filled with affection and he hummed softly.

“Yes, my love?”

“I’m starting to think that writing really isn’t my calling, after all,” he said. Hoseok looked immediately alarmed at the remark and he shifted in his position, pulling Kihyun into his lap and frowning. Careful fingers brushed his hair out of his eyes and Hoseok’s concerned eyes peered into his and he shook his head.

“No, baby,” he said. They’re both frowning, now. “You can’t give up. You’ve worked so hard on this, and this is going to be one of the greatest things you’ve ever written!”

“But, you always say that,” Kihyun sighed. “You said that last year, and you’re saying it again, this year. I don’t know until when I can believe it until. You’ve always been right about everything, but maybe not this time, Hoseok.”

They had been dating for just over a year, and Hoseok always made promises that Kihyun would finally be able to publish _that_ book that would trigger his breakthrough to fame. For the most part, it always seemed as if Hoseok knew what he was talking about—he made promises, and they always seemed to come true. He was confident in whatever he said, and a part of Kihyun was always insistent on believing every single word that came from Hoseok’s mouth.

Unfortunately, being turned down over and over also triggered a sense of hopelessness in his writing. Self-publishing his work wouldn’t give him the fame he needed, and it wouldn’t fulfil that promise he made to his parents, either. Slowly, he was beginning to lose hope in his writing, because he was getting older with each passing day and certainly, this wouldn’t go on forever.

“I say it because I know it’s true,” Hoseok told him, his fingers gently carding through Kihyun’s hair. The pout didn’t vanish from Kihyun’s expression, but he sighed and nodded. Hoseok cupped his cheeks with both hands, forehead pressing against the younger man’s.

“You’re going to become one of the best-selling authors of all time, one day,” Hoseok told him. “And I’ll be your biggest fan.”

 

 

 

Falling into Yoo Kihyun’s life was as easy as anything in the world. It was stepping into the strange machine his friend built, trusting said friend with his life, and thinking about the most important thing to him. Shin Hoseok was an avid fan of literature, and it was unfortunate that in his time, books were rare. Everyone read on their mobile devices, or didn’t read at all. Hoseok still found himself in love with the scent of freshly printed ink on pages—the smell of a _new book_. And that was what he thought of.

Initially, it had been just to humour Minhyuk. He didn’t really think that Minhyuk’s crazy inventions would actually trigger the time travel that he was promised. But, with a flash and a pounding headache, he woke up in a familiar city that was somehow so _unfamiliar_.

Returning to the time that his favourite author lived was amazing—he didn’t think that Minhyuk was actually capable of it. But, he was also perfectly aware of the fact that Minhyuk _hadn’t_ built a device to take him back, yet. All he had was a small gadget that _hopefully_ would allow him to speak to his best friend. It had been relieving to hear the crackling sound of Minhyuk’s voice, but it seemed that there was a warp when two different realities existed at once.

Truthfully, after finding Kihyun in the bookstore that he read about a million times over in the author’s biography, Hoseok never found the time to speak to Minhyuk properly through the device. His world was wrapped around Kihyun, who was younger than him, in the time that he was transported to. He’d been madly in love with the author’s work, but he didn’t think that he would also fall head over heels for the author himself.

A year and a half into their relationship, though, Hoseok still didn’t have the guts to tell Kihyun that they weren’t from the same time era. He’d chickened out from doing it, when he watched Kihyun make coffee for the first time—he’d been completely amazed at the way the younger man actually had to wait for his coffee to brew and add sugar, cream and all that, to it. In Hoseok’s time, coffee simply came as an all-in-one kind of thing: a flavoured pill that you threw into a cup, for a few moments.

Kihyun had thought it was adorable and assumed that he simply was a sheltered child who never found the need to step into the kitchen, even at twenty-four.

But, right now, he couldn’t really avoid it, anymore.

Kihyun stood in front of him with the beeping gadget Minhyuk had given him between his fingers, and he furrowed his brows in confusion. He wasn’t angry—just terribly confused.

“Babe,” he called, “What is this?”

Hoseok couldn’t even find the words to begin his explanation.

“It’s from my friend,” he said, “It’s to communicate with him, because he’s kind of a thousand years ahead of us, in time?”

“Are you joking?” Kihyun deadpanned, frowning.

And it takes an hour long conversation for Kihyun to even start to believe that he was from a completely different era (and dialing a very sleepy Minhyuk through the dumb little gadget, who immediately yelled at him for interrupting his beauty sleep). But, even after the conversation with Minhyuk, the younger man could hardly wrap his head around reality. He insistently murmured that there was no such thing as time travel—it was much too ridiculous. And Hoseok seemed to fit in perfectly with the people of this era. Almost.

Sitting down on his sofa and waving his hands in the air, Kihyun stopped Hoseok from speaking. “Hush, okay, stop.”

Hoseok paused, eyes on his boyfriend.

“So, what you’re saying is that you’re from the future?” Kihyun repeated, eyebrow arched in mild disbelief.

“Yes,” Hoseok confirmed, before he immediately looked worried again. “You’re not going to break up with me for this, right?”

Kihyun made a face, “Of course not, I just—this is just a lot to take in. I feel like I just walked into one of my books.”

Hoseok doesn’t bother telling him that Kihyun does end up authoring a book about time travel, and he can’t help but think that this was supposed to happen—he and Kihyun meeting like this. Because if he properly recalled it, then there was a mysterious annotation in Kihyun’s books to an unnamed person who was simply referred to as _‘the most special person in my life’_.

“Is… is this why you’re always right about everything?” he asked, sounding a little defeated. Hoseok’s heart ached.

“That’s why I’m telling you not to give up, baby,” Hoseok whispered, wrapping his arms around him and pulling Kihyun into his chest. Kihyun’s hands didn’t immediately wrap around him, and Hoseok felt his heart breaking a little bit. “I… I know that you’re going to make it big, and you’re going to get there. You’re going to be one of the best writers the world has ever seen, and _yes, I’m really your biggest fan_.”

Kihyun’s eyes were disbelieving.

“I’m not just saying this, Kihyun. This is something I’ve seen with my own eyes. I need you to not give up and keep writing—I can’t tell you _what_ you’ll do to make it there, as much as I want to. I’m not allowed to mess too much with the past, but falling in love with you was inevitable. You’re going to have to keep trying, my love. You’ll make it. I promise you _will_.”

(And as Hoseok’s words always rang true, Kihyun does manage to make it there. He’s exactly twenty-five when his time comes and his work blows up to the rest of the world. And he could remember running into Hoseok’s arms, tackling him to the ground excitedly—unable to control himself. But, they’ve both never smiled quite as brightly in their lives.

But, Kihyun hit him gently when Hoseok grinned and whispered, _“What did I tell you?”_ )

 

 

 

“Is there another me, a thousand years in the future?” Kihyun asked, his voice a soft whisper into Hoseok’s hair. The blond chuckled and nodded.

“Yeah,” he replied, closing his eyes and smiling slightly.

“What’s he like? How do you know it’s me?” Kihyun asked, curiously. Hoseok looked at him through one open eye and smiled.

“Same name and same cute face. And, I feel this strange romantic attraction to him.”

Kihyun smacked his chest gently, but curled against him and sighed softly—pleased. “Tell me about him.”

“In my time, you’re a really cute computer science student who refuses to talk to me directly, but talks to me through my best friend.”

Hoseok exhaled softly and shifted with Kihyun in his arms, pursing his lips as he thought. And then he was telling Kihyun about the future—the way it was so different from the life that they were living in now. He jokingly tells him that it would be pretty cool if Kihyun wrote a book about what the future would be like, based on what Hoseok told him, because he’d be recorded in textbooks as an absolute genius. Kihyun smacked his chest, again and smirked in amusement.

“They’d call me crazy for wanting to publish something like that,” he said, “I’m a fiction novelist.”

“Well, they called you crazy for the first three years you tried to publish something, right?” Hoseok smiled. “Look at you now.”

And Kihyun’s smiling—it’s bright and Hoseok suddenly couldn’t tell what was more blinding between Kihyun’s smile and the way the light streamed into the room where they laid down together on Kihyun’s bed. There was a flush on the author’s cheeks, flattered at the words and somehow so shy. His writing was his pride, and Hoseok’s heart burst with happiness and warmth whenever he genuinely thought about what it meant to the younger man.

“Hey.”

“Yes, my love?”

“If Minhyuk ever manages to take you back,” he says, softly. Hoseok raised an eyebrow at him. “If Minhyuk manages to build the thing that takes you away from me, and back to your time, I want you to make me a promise.”

“Anything.”

“Find me in your time, and make him fall in love with you. Marry him,” Kihyun replied, cheekily smiling.

“What if he doesn’t fall in love with me?”

“Make him. I’m sure every version of me would fall head over heels in love with you.”


End file.
